Killen: "NOT GUILTY"

Experts: Killen tape could see trial


Transcript of 1975 phone conversation
Real Media: Killen phone conversation 1975

Edgar Ray Killen, accused of collaborating with law officers and others in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers, boasted a decade later that he had law enforcement support to carry out violence.

The statement is on a tape of a telephone call Killen made June 21, 1974
 
Killen's defense prepares for trial

A defense attorney for an 80-year-old reputed Klan leader charged in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers said Wednesday he has no plans to challenge his client's competency.

"It looks like we're going to trial June 13," said Jackson lawyer James McIntyre, who raised questions previously about how much Edgar Ray Killen could assist his own defense.

Killen has professed his innocence to charges he was involved in orchestrating the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Since getting out of the hospital a month ago, Killen has been busy giving interviews to film crews. On Tuesday, he talked with Channel 4 in England, which
is doing a documentary in cooperation with CourtTV, expected to telev
ise Killen's trial.

McIntyre said Killen told his interviewer, "It has been three generations since this occurred. Am I being tried by a group of my peers? My peers are gone."

Said McIntyre: "Killen raised an interesting question. You can tell he's no dummy."

The defense attorney said he may use Killen's reasoning when he asks Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon to dismiss charges against his client in a hearing slated for 9 a.m. Monday in Neshoba County Circuit Court.

McIntyre said Killen is being selectively prosecuted.

"Crimes, and more particularly crimes of violence, are on the rampage in the state of Mississippi and have escalated dramatically in the past 40 years," McIntyre argued in his motion. "The public is being threatened each and every day by
new crimes, but the state of Mississippi has chosen to single out an old charge of murder against this defendant (who) is not a threat."

Jewel McDonald of P
hiladelphia, whose mother and brother were beaten by some of the same Klansmen involved in the trio's killings, called the defense argument "a bunch of baloney."

It shouldn't matter when a crime takes place, "you need to be prosecuted for it," she said. "What if it was your child that was killed? Wouldn't you want some kind of justice?"

White supremacist Richard Barrett of Learned, who has decried Killen's prosecution, said he's surprised to hear the defense isn't pursuing a competency claim. "I'm disappointed, not just for the sake of the defendant, but for the justice system," he said.

A March 10 accident almost prevented Killen from being tried. A tree fell on the sawmill owner and part-time preacher, shattering both his legs and sendi
ng him to the hospital for a month.

These days, he remains confined to a wheelchair.

McIntyre said he noticed Killen was becoming physically uncomfortable as Tuesday's interview dragged on.

But he said he sees no problems mentally. "Killen
is competent in my opinion."

*******************
"Crimes, and more particularly crimes of violence, are on the rampage in the state of Mississippi and have escalated dramatically in the past 40 years," McIntyre argued in his motion. "The public is being threatened each and every day by new crimes, but the state of Mississippi has chosen to single out an old charge of murder against this defendant (who) is not a threat."</td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEE
nd-->

Reference: Mississippi TNB since indictment of Edgar Ray Killen

Memo to James McIntyre and others on Edgar Ray's defense team: Find out how many times The History Channel et al have broadcast programs concerning James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman since Edgar Ray's indictment. Find out how many viewers in Mississippi were exposed to such broadcasts. You know what t
o do after that.

T.N.B.
Click to expand...
 
Crosstarlist: Edgar Ray Killen Double Jeopardy Trial - The Barrett-Hood Meeting

From luke-warm of today to on-fire of tomorrow - by Richard Barrett

My meeting with Attorney-General Jim Hood was affable, cordial and, at times, jocular. For an hour and twenty minutes, we discussed legal matters, political campaigns and social issues, centering intensely on the re-trial of Edgar Ray Killen. I made it clear from the outset that given a choice between Killen, who drove Communists out of Mississippi, and Michael Schwerner, the Communist who invaded Mississippi, I would have to side with Killen. I reminded Hood that the right to speedy trial, freedom from double-jeopardy and the prohibition against re-trying of facts, under the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Amendments, is designed to protect the American
people, as a whole. He replied that he agreed wit
h me, but that the Mississippi Supreme Court had ruled that the right to speedy trial did not apply in Mississippi, so he had to follow the court. I presented him with a copy of my book, The Commission, in which I wrote: "When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Indians could not be moved out of Mississippi, Andrew Jackson said, 'Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.' When the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that there was no right to a speedy trial, would that Jim Hood would say, 'Mr. Pittman has made his decision. Now, let him enforce it.'"

The room, atop the Gartin Building, then rollicked with laughter, when I said that I was going next to ask the Governor to do as Gerald Ford did with Richard Nixon and issue a pardon to Killen, who was being prosecuted after forty years by Hood. "That would solve the problem," I said. I warned Hood that he was taking an extremely unpopular political
position, contrary to the wishes of grass-roots Mississippians, many of whom are D
emocrats. "You and I share many of the same beliefs, as Democrats," he said. He asked me if many would turn out to protest the trial. I pointed out that 488,000 had voted for the Confederate flag. "The undercurrent is there," I explained. "It will be felt not in droves at the courthouse, but by backlash at the polls." Hood replied that he didn't care whether he won or lost the case, but that he just wanted to "let a jury decide." I mentioned how Bill Baxley of Alabama had tried the same thing, but had been turned out of office, for doing so. I recalled Anthony Imperiale, who drove rioters out of his Italian neighborhood in Newark. I told how he tracked down the man who mugged his mother and meted out retribution. "Sometimes, vigilantes are needed," I insisted.

(more at link)
 
Jim Hood can kiss my white ass.

I spoke with Edgar Ray's attorney over the phone last Thursday for about 20 minutes. Edgar Ray is doing fine and Mr. McIntyre is going to ask for a dismissal on July 13th. I sincerely hope the judge is American enough to grant it.

I'm asking NNN reporters and readers to send cards and letters of encouragement to Edgar Ray at this address.

Edgar Ray Killen
C/O James McIntyre
P.O. Box 22726
Jackson MS 39225-2726

T.N.B.
 
Security tight for Killen trial today

Law enforcement officials from four state agencies are expected to provide security at Edgar Ray Killen's murder trial to address safety concerns, Neshoba County Sheriff Larry Myers said.

"You will have (the) defendant's and victims' families there," Myers said. "We want to make sure we have a safe environment for all. We don't want to come up here and somebody might get hurt.

"This case right here probably has more security than the majority of cases. There's a lot of feelings riding on this case."

Killen, 80, goes on trial today in Neshoba County Circuit Court in Philadelphia. The trial could last one to two weeks, depending on the length of jury selection.

The Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol is expected to send 25 troopers to the trial, Myers sa
id. The Mississippi Department of Corrections is providing from six to eight officers, he said.

The Neshoba County Sheriff's Department will provide 10 of its 15 deputies and the Philadelphia Police Department will provide from 15 to 18 of its 25 officers each day, Police Chief David Edwards said.

The Philadelphia Police Department will be stationed outside the courthouse, on the lawn and on streets, while Neshoba County deputies and Highway Patrol troopers will be inside. Corrections officers will be used where needed, Edwards said.

"Our main priority will be on city streets and sidewalks and the courthouse lawn," Edwards said. The county will handle upstairs in the courtroom itself."

The sensitive nature of the case is cause for the large number of law enforcement officers, Myers said.

"We don't know what to anticipate," he said. "You neve
r know. You plan for the worst and pray for the best."

During the trial, both Main and Beacon streets will be reduced to one lane, Edwards said. B
ird and Center Avenue will be blocked off, Edwards said.

Myers is ironing out with the Neshoba County Board of Supervisors who will pick up the tab for officers from other jurisdictions, said Benjie Coats, the county administrator.

In addition to law enforcement officers, media outlets from across the country have contacted officials about attending the trial, said Beverly Pettigrew Kraft, public information officer for the state courts system.

There are 172 seats in the courtroom, Kraft said, with 33 designated for the media. Additional members of the media who wish to attend will have to do so by lottery, she said.

"There are only a limited number of seats in the courtroom," she said.

Nonmedia overflow crowds will not have a place to view the trial, said Patsy Brumfield, volunteer coordinator for the trial&#
39;s media center.

The center, housed in a vacant restaurant across the street from the courthouse, was organized by volunteer members of the media, Kraft said.

About 100 members
of the media will be provided camera and audio feeds at the center.

******************
Here we go!

T.N.B.
 
Killen Trial: Day One

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (AP) -- Reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen watched from a wheelchair Monday as jury selection began in his murder trial in one of most shocking crimes of the civil rights era -- the 1964 slayings of three voter-registration volunteers.

The case against the 80-year-old Killen represents Mississippi's latest attempt to deal with unfinished business from the state's bloodstained, racist past.

In a measure of how much things have changed over the past 41 years, about a quarter of the jury pool was black, roughly reflecting the racial makeup of the county's 28,700 residents. In 1964, very few blacks were registered to vote in Neshoba County, and juries were usually all-white.

The sl
ayings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner -- three you
ng men who were helping register blacks during the "Freedom Summer" of 1964 and were investigating a church burning the night they disappeared -- galvanized the civil rights movement and helped win passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case was dramatized in the 1988 movie "Mississippi Burning."

Security was tight as 110 potential jurors were brought to the county courthouse on buses and ushered in through a side door. Another pool of 57 potential jurors is expected on Tuesday.

Summonses were sent to about 400 people, but court officials said many received automatic excuses not to serve because they were disabled or were over 65 or had economic hardships.

Killen, a part-time preacher who could face life in prison if convicted, looked straight ahead and said nothing as he was taken into the two-story, red-brick courthouse. Killen has been free on bail and uses a wheelchair because
of arthritis that was aggravated after his legs were broken in a tree-cutting accident in March. He sa
t silently inside the courtroom. His wife, stepson, brother and another relative sat nearby.

Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon asked potential jurors about such things as their health, their reading ability and any hardships they might face if they were picked for the case. By the end of the day, about 50 people had been excused.

Streets near the courthouse in this town of about 7,300 were barricaded throughout the day, and those entering the building had to pass through metal detectors. Inside the courtroom, as many as nine uniformed officers, including state troopers to and sheriff's deputies, stood guard.

There were no early demonstrations, but J.J. Harper of Cordele, Ga., who calls himself the Imperial Wizard of the American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Inc., was standing nearby as Killen was helped from the car into his wheelchair and shook Killen's hand. At least three oth
er people were seen with Harper in the courtroom, but he would not say whether the other two men and a woman were me
mbers of the Klan. Last week, the leader of a Mississippi Ku Klux Klan group said his members were asked to stay away from Philadelphia because they fear any organized protest would hurt Killen's case.

Defense attorney James McIntyre of Jackson said he was not aware that Klansmen were attending the trial. He said the defense did not want them at the courthouse. Among those at the courthouse was Chaney's brother, Ben Chaney of New York, who has been the most vocal member of the family in seeking justice in the case. At one point, he sat only a row away from the Georgia Klansman.

Outside the courtroom, Ben Chaney said he's encouraged to see prosecutors pursuing a murder case. He said social changes over the past 40 years have created a completely different atmosphere. "It's good to see that Mississippi is living in the
21st century," he said.

Killen's name has been associated with the slayings from the beginning. FBI records and witnesses indicated he
organized the carloads of Klansmen who followed Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner and stopped them in their station wagon. Chaney, a black man from Mississippi, and Schwerner and Goodman, white men from New York, were beaten and shot to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

Killen was tried along with several others in 1967 on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen's case, but seven others were convicted. None served more than six years. Killen is the only person ever indicted on state murder charges in the case.

Gordon said opening arguments could start Thursday. McIntyre said before entering the courthouse that it would be extremely difficult to seat a jury. "Everybody in the world has known about this case through the news media, b
ooks and hearsay," he said. "There's no place on earth you can go where people haven't heard about this case." But eventually, he said, "I think the jury will acq
uit him."

****************
I hope and pray they do!

T.N.B.
 
Prominent consultant assisting in seating jury

The trial of Edgar Ray Killen marks the seventh time nationally known jury consultant Andrew Sheldon has aided authorities in their efforts to pursue unpunished killings from the South's past.

For that work, the 63-year-old from Atlanta has been featured on Nightline and has drawn accolades from prosecutors who have used his services.

"He understands the psychology of people in a way for the prosecutor to take the proof he has and present it in the best possible light," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Lacy.

Last year, the American Society of Trial Consultants honored Sheldon and eight other consultants and researchers who have assisted in th
ese cases. President Richard Gabriel told those gathered that although Sheldo
n and others "may never be widely recognized individually for their work, undeniably, each of them has made a lasting contribution to the cause of equal opportunity for all Americans."

With regard to Killen's trial this week, potential jurors already have filled out questionnaires Sheldon has refined since 1994. The questions seek to elicit answers aimed at uncovering views on race, politics and many other areas.

In addition to obvious questions like "What do you think of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday?" Sheldon also quizzes potential jurors on their favorite TV shows, their bumper stickers, and the magazines and books they read.

From those results, Sheldon rates potential jurors and gives prosecutors his opinions on which ones to select.

When prosecutors were first approached about using a jury consultant in the 2003 federal murder trial of Ernest Avants, "I thought
it was a colossal waste of time," Lacy said. "By the time we were at the process of jury selection, I was convinced
he knew what he was doing, and most of my traditional and most cherished ideas of jury selection were simply wrong."

When Sheldon recommended a certain juror, Lacy initially resisted. "As it turned out, she was exactly the right choice," he said. "I credit our victory in large measure to a jury consultant who knew what he was talking about."

Bob Helfrich, the lead prosecutor against one-time Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers in the 1966 slaying of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer Sr. in Hattiesburg, said Sheldon's expertise goes beyond jury selection.

"He never said a word, but sat and observed the jury during the entire trial," said Helfrich, now a circuit judge. "He could tell what they were reacting to, and he would let us know what they were reacting to. You can incorporate that in your arguments."

In 1968, Sheldon st
arted his legal career representing those who couldn't afford lawyers.

Eight years later, he went back to college, got his doctorate in clinical psychology and counseled patients. In
1985, he married the two professions, among the first of a new breed of jury consultants.

In 1994, he volunteered his services to Hinds County prosecutors to help them pick the jury for the successful prosecution of Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of NAACP leader Medgar Evers.

Four years later, he aided Forrest County prosecutors in jury selection for the murder trial of Bowers. A year later, Sheldon helped them again in the murder trial of Charles Noble in connection with Dahmer's death.

In 2001 and 2002, he helped state and federal prosecutors pick juries that convicted Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls.

In 2003, Sheldon aided federal prosecutors in Jackson in Avants' trial.

Noble was the sole defendant not to be convicted. His trial ended in a mistrial. Authorities have dismissed the charges against him.

In most of these cases, Sheldon pro
vided his services to prosecutors for free, except for reimbursement for expenses.

Sheldon wouldn't speak about his current role, but in previous interviews with The Clarion-Ledger he has discussed his motivation.

"There's no statute of limitations on murder," he said. "And why is that? Because it's such a grotesque offense against people, families and co-workers. Something has to be done."

*************
"There's no statute of li
mitations on murder," he said. "And why is that? Because it's such a grotesque offense against people, families and co-workers. Something has to be done."
Click to expand...

I think something has to be done about negritude! Who murders more than niggers? Of course, Andrew Sheldon doesn't care how many people niggers murder since he spends all his free time hunting down white men who, 40 some odd years ago, tried to keep the niggers from killing them and raping their wives daughters, mothe
rs and grandmothers. Shame on you, Andrew Sheldon. Burn in hell you SOB.

Reference:
orace.gif


Racial differences exist, with blacks disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders

T.N.B.
 
(from Crosstar list)
****************

CROSS-EXAMINATION OF RITA SCHWERNER BENDER

Edgar Ray Killen had once told reporters that he did not believe in murder, but
he did believe in self-defense. His lawyers, however, did not believe in a political
defense and seemed incapable of mounting the argument that vigilante-justice against
Communist-invaders and lawless-insurrectionists was an act of self-defense. When
Rita Schwerner Bender was called as a witness, testifying outside the presence of
Killen, who was hospitalized, at the time, the cross-examination by James McIntyre
was weak, ineffective and incomplete. As soon as Killen was hauled out on a stretcher,
Richard Barrett called upon Attorney-general Jim Hood to call off the proceedings,
stating that "the trial is a sham, the prosecution is a travesty and the persecuti
on
is
intolerable." Judge Marcus Gordon held that the guar
antees of the Sixth Amendment
for a speedy trial and to be confronted by witnesses does not apply. Here is the
cross-examination, as it should have been, and answers, as they likely would
have been:

Lawyer: Where did you meet Michael Schwerner?

Rita Schwerner: At a CORE meeting in New York City.

Lawyer: That would have been in Greenwich Village?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: That area has been a hot-bed of Communist activity for many years, has
it not. as well as the headquarters of the Wobblies, Communist Party and various
other anarchist groups? Also, the Beatniks started there, I believe?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: Were most members of CORE Communist?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: Is CORE the same organization whose head, Roy Innis, tried to murder
a man over national television, on the "Geraldo" show?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: What was th
e objective of CORE?

Schwerner: They wanted to overthrow this country, a white, Anglo-Saxon nation,
which they felt stood in the
way of the one-world Marxist dream.

Lawyer: How did they plan to go about this?

Schwerner: Since 1917, they had called for violently overthrowing the country,
killing and hanging people. But, they believed that forcing the Negro in upon
society would weaken whites and let the country drop into their hands. It is laid
out in the Communist Party platform. Communists were the first to call for integration.

Lawyer: What role did the South play in all of this?

Schwerner: The South was the whitest area of the country. If it could be toppled
and replaced with a Republic of New Africa, the Red Flag would fly over America.

Lawyer: What nationality is the name "Schwerner"?

Schwerner: Jewish.

Lawyer: And what nationality are you?

Schwerner: Jewish. My ancestors came from Russia and were members
of the
Wobblies, who advocated killing people who stood in the way of Communism
back in the early Nineteen hundreds. The Palmer Raids stopped a lot of their
activity, until the Sixt
ies, when integrationist activity was resurrected, helped
by rulings of the Warren Supreme Court.

Lawyer: So, you married one of your own kind. Would that be a form of
segregation?

Schwerner: I suppose so.

Lawyer: But you practiced segregation, but did not want Americans to do
the same?

Schwerner: Being segregated and keeping blood pure has kept J*ws united
and solidified. We did not want others to have the same solidarity and unity.
J*ws practice a sort of "divide and conquer" strategy.

Lawyer: Is that the strategy of the Communist Party?

Schwerner: Of course. As Rabbi Stephen Wise once said, "Some call it
Communism, I call it Judaism." The founder of Communism, Karl Marx, was a
J*w. We are the only truly "international&quo
t; people. Our loyalty is never
to any
particular country.

Lawyer: What was the role of Schwerner's mother in the Communist Party?

Schwerner: She was one of the high-ranking officials in New York City.

Lawyer: What did she tell her so
n, Michael?

Schwerner: She taught him to always use the Negro as a wedge against whites
and she encouraged him to stir up "agitation" by Negroes. Michael fit
the
pattern of the "outside agitator" that Southerners were always hollering
against.

Lawyer: Schwerner's family was "segregated," as well?

Schwerner: They were all J*ws, yes.

Lawyer: Was CORE openly Communist?

Schwerner: It used words like "civil rights," "register to vote"
and "oppose
racism," but it left images of Marx out. The agenda was the same.

Lawyer: What is the Republic of New Africa?

Schwerner: That is the name of what many I worked with want
ed to rename the
South, after all the whites had been driven out or killed off. Since there were
so
many Negroes in the South, we knew it could happen, if the Negroes would simply
rise up, the way John Brown did, and kill all the whites.

Lawyer: Who were Michael's heroes?

Schwerner: Marx, Lenin, Castro, Mao, Trotsky, John Brown, Emma Goldman.

Lawyer
: Isn't Mao the one who said that "power comes from the barrel of a
gun?"

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: Leon Trotsky, whose real name was Bronstein, was pretty violent,
wasn't he?

Schwerner: Yes and some of his cohorts wound up killing him, in the end.

Lawyer: Why John Brown and Emma Goldman?

Schwerner: Brown advocated killing white people, kind of a forerunner of the
Bolsheviks. Goldman called for killing everyone in authority.

Lawyer: Brown was killed by a young Robert E. Lee, because Brown was trying
to overthrow the government. Do you think that L
ee had any qualities, such as
courage and love of home and land, that might inspire others today, such as Edgar
Ray Killen?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: But, Michael wanted those with such qualities out?

Schwerner: Our idea was to register Negroes to vote, to vote for other Negroes,
to
get the whites out, whoever they were, wherever they were. If the Negroes did not
outnumber the whites, the object was to get judges to
draw districts to put Negroes
in, anyhow. If all else failed, well, you remember the riots.

Lawyer: Why did you feel that this would succeed?

Schwerner: When John Kennedy invaded Mississippi to install a Negro at the
white university and Lyndon Johnson sided with Martin Luther King against Ross
Barnett, we felt sure that our opportunity had arrived.

Lawyer: Did Michael journey to Mississippi alone?

Schwerner: Actually, there was a whole network of outside-agitators in place.
He reported to Bob Moses in Jackson. It
all was paid for by wealthy Communist
sympathizers across the country. Carl and Ann Braden were instrumental in
arranging the financing. They, also, financed Martin Luther King.

Lawyer: What did Michael do during his time in Mississippi?

Schwerner: He met with Negroes and tried to get them to defy the white man,
at every turn. He, especially, held up W.E.B. DuBois as a role-model for Negroes.
DuBois was a Communist, who finally went to Africa, calling for the
overthrow
of America. He, also, was active in the NAACP.

Lawyer: Would it be safe to say that Michael, Andrew Goodman and James
Chaney were seeking to overthrow the segregated government of Mississippi?

Schwerner: Certainly.

Lawyer: Would you think that some people might feel that it was appropriate to
defend themselves against such an invasion?

Schwerner: Yes.

Lawyer: Where?

Schwerner: In Neshoba County. Wherever they happened to be.

Lawyer: There are plent
y of places in the world were people, especially Negroes,
cannot vote. In Africa, there is even slavery, still. Did Michael ever discuss
going
to some other place to agitate?

Schwerner: No. He felt that toppling the South was the biggest and best thing
he
could do, at the time. Goodman, you know, said that whites were the worst devils
in the world, so defeating the devil would be the ultimate accomplishment.

Lawyer: "Devil" is a Christian term, but Goodman was not a Christian,
was he?

Schwerner:
No, both Goodman and Michael were J*ws. Chaney, who they picked
up, was a Negro.

Lawyer: I notice that Israelis, your people, claim that they have a right to defend
their territory against invasion by outsiders. Do you think that Mississippians
had
a similar right?

Schwerner: I hadn't thought of it that way, but I suppose so.

Lawyer: Now this Republic of New Africa, was it to be a "republican"
form of
government of the sort guaranteed by the Constitution?

Schwerner: It would be more like a tribal entity, more like Uganda or the Congo.

Lawyer: What about trials, due-process, constitutional rights and such as that?

Schwerner: We were not thinking about those things. We simply wanted
Negro-rule. "We shall overcome," you know.

Lawyer: And who exactly was to be overcome?

Schwerner: Whites.

Lawyer: Edgar Ray killen is quoted as saying that he did not believe in murder,
but he did believe in self-defense. Have you any quarrel with that?

Schwerner: No.

Lawyer:
Do you have any qualms about testifying against Killen, who is not
even being present in the courtroom?

Schwerner: Not really. Stalin and Ho Chi Minh put people on trial in absentia,
the same way.

Lawyer: I notice that your hair is cut very short, in a mannish, butch way. Is
that because of the heat here today?

Schwerner: No. This is to sho
w that I am a "feminist," in league with
Rosy
O'Donnell, K. D. Lang, Ellen DeGeneris and such as that.

Lawyer: What has lesbianism to do with all of that?

Schwerner: We believe in "equality" for all, well, actually, affirmative-action
to promote lesbians, homosexuals and others "left out" by the white man,
all
these years. Pushing the Negro in was just the first step. Then, the homosexuals,
then the Communists, outright.

Lawyer: Mississippi and America are strong Christian areas. Do you think that
many would regard Michael's and your own agenda as an assault on the morals,
principles and, even, freedom of this country?

Sc
hwerner: Yes. But we obviously do not care.

Lawyer: The goatee and beard that Michael wore, why was that?

Schwerner: It made him look like Lenin. He really expected to see the same kind
of bloodbath in the South as Lenin had unleashed in Russia, all for the good of
the caus
e.

Lawyer: Communism demands the mixing of all races and nationalities and
the abolition of all borders. But, you have remarried and your new husband is,
also, Jewish. So, you have not mixed.

Schwerner: True, we believe that bringing all the rest of humanity down to a single
level will avoid the opposition to us, which has plagued us throughout history.
So, our role is kind of like the Commissars under Communism. We are like the
captains of the big Red ship. Negroes are easier to keep in their place. That
is why there was slavery.

Lawyer: L. D. Smith was the young white soldier, killed in Vietnam by Negroes
for wearing a patch of a Confederate flag on his sleeve. Did Michael ever express
any sympat
hy for him?

Schwerner: No.

Lawyer: Senator James O. Eastland secured passage of the Anti-Riot Act of 1968,
which prohibited crossing state-lines to stir up riots. If that law had been in
place
in 1964, would Michael have ventured down to
Mississippi to stir up Negroes?

Schwerner: Probably not. He probably would have stayed in New York or, maybe,
as some of his family and friends have done, emigrated to Israel.

Lawyer: That's right, there is a "Law of Return," which beckons all J*ws
in the
world to go to Israel. Would you have any objection to having America be an
Anglo-Saxon, Christian country, the way Israel seeks to be a Jewish, Zionist country?

Schwerner: I'd prefer not to answer that.

Lawyer: What is a vigilante?

Schwerner: Someone who tries to remedy injustices that those in authority fail
to correct.

Lawyer: Were their any failings by government, back in 1964, that you recollect?

Schwerner: Yes, government had failed to keep Michael and others in jail o
r to
even
punish them, in any way. That was a failing.

Lawyer: What is treason?

Schwerner: That is the crime of trying to overthrow a country. Basically, it is
declaring w
ar on a country, from within the country, or war against an individual
state.

Lawyer: Can you envision that your husband, Michael, and his cohorts might have
been guilty of treason?

Schwerner: Perhaps, under some circumstances.

Lawyer: Are you familiar with the penalty for treason?

Schwerner: I believe it is the death-penalty.

Lawyer: And, would it be fair to say that had Michael, Goodman and Chaney remained
in jail they might still be alive, today, and vigilantes would not have felt the
need to take
the law into their own hands?

Schwerner: Yes.


DEAD LINKS
http://www.nationalist.org/alt/2005/schwerner.html

The Nationalist Movement
PO Box 2000
Learned MS 39154
(601) 885-2288
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Seeing 80-year-old in jail cell drew defense lawyer to case

The lead counsel for reputed Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen said seeing Killen in jail prompted him to want to take on the criminal case.

"When I saw an 80-year-old man without his false teeth and his glasses at 6:30 in the morning, laying on that concrete floor of the jail cell, I knew it wasn't right," said 43-year-old Carthage lawyer Mitch Moran. "A lot of people will say, 'Well, if he'd been convicted 40 years ago, he'd still be there.' That's true, but 40 years ago, he could have defended himself."

In January, a Neshoba County grand jury indicted Killen on three counts of murder for allegedly orchestratin
g the June 21, 1964, killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. Killen has in
sisted he is innocent and never belonged to the Klan.

Moran said the justice system is meant to take the dangerous off the street. "This case is not going to serve any of that," he said. "Whether (Killen) did it or not, we need to put it in God's hands because that's going to happen soon enough."

Most defense attorneys forbid their clients from talking to the media, but not Moran, who's allowed Killen to do at least four television interviews.

"At least it humanized him," he said. "That's the basic reason."

Moran grew up in San Diego, where his father worked for NASA, but he preferred getting his hands dirty.

He farmed in Louisiana, but when he faced money woes in the early 1990s, he changed careers.

He decided to attend Mississippi College School of Law because it was "50
minutes from my deer hunting camp," he said. "I thought if I'm going to torture myself with law school
 
41 years later, lawyer picks up '64 case right where he left off

Thirty-three FBI agents and federal marshals entered the Neshoba County Courthouse in 1966, ready to arrest Sheriff Lawrence Rainey.

When one of the agents asked Rainey to turn over his gun and prepare to be handcuffed, Rainey replied, "You ain't handcuffin' my a--. You're the first one I'm gonna kill."

Rainey drew his gun and stood by his deputy, Cecil Price, who clutched a shotgun. "Look, you SOBs, I'm a big man. It'll take more than one shot to knock me down. If there's anybody left, Price is gonna get you with the shotgun," Rainey said.

The sheriff pointed at all the age
nts and marshals: "All y'all here are under arrest."

Jackson defense lawyer James McIntyre, who w
as in the courthouse that day, shared this story with a laugh. "I was scared to death," he said. "I knew when the shooting started, I'd have to go out a window."

McIntyre, who represented Rainey, said the sheriff finally put down his gun and turned himself in.

Now, 41 years later, the 72-year-old lawyer finds himself representing another suspect in the June 21, 1964, killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman
 
Prosecution Rests

After only a few witnesses Saturday morning, the state turned it over to the defense. The defense called a few witnesses before court recessed at about noon.

Although short, it was another heated day for both sides. The state wrapped up their case with emotional testimony from James Chaney's mother. Wiping away tears, she recalled the day her son disappeared and how threats against her life forced her out of Mississippi.
 


By Julie Goodman
jgoodman@clarionledger.com

While some here dismiss the trial as a tired look at the past, others hope it will bring change, including improving civil rights education and breaking down resistance to interracial marriages.
Click to expand...


Hmm, Goodman, sound kosher to me.
 
Defense Rests in Killen Trial

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. (AP) -- The defense rested Monday in the trial of a former Ku Klux Klanman in the 1964 slayings of three civil rights workers after a former mayor testified that the white-supremacist group was a "peaceful organization."

Harlan Majure, who was mayor of this rural Mississippi town in the 1990s, said Edgar Ray Killen was a good man and that the part-time preacher's Klan membership would not change his opinion.

Majure said the Klan "did a lot of good up here" and said he was not personally aware of the organization's bloody past.

"As far as I know it's a peaceful organization," Majure said. His co
mment was met with murmurs in the packed courtroom.

After the defense rested, the judge began reading instruction
s to the jury, to be followed by closing arguments.

Killen, an 80-year-old sawmill operator, faces the first-ever state murder charges in the case and could get life in prison if convicted. He did not testify.

The victims -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner -- were helping register black voters. They had been stopped for speeding, were jailed briefly and then released, after which they were ambushed by a gang of Klansmen. They were shot, their bodies found 44 days later buried in an earthen dam in rural Neshoba County.

Also Monday, David Winstead testified that his brother, Mike Winstead, 52, lied in testimony last week when he claimed to have overheard a conversation between his grandfather and Killen in which the defendant acknowledged playing a role in the killings.

However, David Winstead acknowled
ged that he was a friend of the Killen family and was not present during conversations that his brother, who was 10 years old at the time, claimed
to have overheard.

Killen was tried in 1967 along with several others on federal charges of violating the victims' civil rights. The all-white jury deadlocked in Killen's case, but seven others were convicted. None served more than six years.

**************
It's almost over now.

T.N.B.
 
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